


A Special Appointment

by lachatblanche



Series: About A Boy [2]
Category: Agent Carter (TV), X-Men (Movies), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Families of Choice, Fluff, Gen, bb!Charles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-01
Updated: 2016-03-01
Packaged: 2018-05-24 05:09:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6142489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lachatblanche/pseuds/lachatblanche
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘Put your foot down, Mr. Jarvis,’ Peggy said with a tight smile. ‘I don’t think that I need to tell you that this is one rendezvous that we do <em>not</em> want to be late for.’</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In which Peggy is running late for a very important event.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Special Appointment

Agent Carter was in the middle of a gruelling fistfight with a hefty Russian assassin when she happened to catch sight of the time. 

‘Damn,’ she muttered under her breath, before twisting elegantly to the side and dodging a meaty fist to the face. Still keeping one eye on the wall clock, she stepped back with her left foot and delivered a painful, pointy-toe-shoed kick into the groin of her opponent. The man went down like a tonne of bricks, allowing Peggy to straighten up and smooth down her dress just as her backup finally arrived from the SSR.

‘No time to explain,’ she told the approaching agent, who was eyeing both Peggy and the floored Russian with something akin to awe. ‘Get him in to Chief Sousa, he’ll know what to do.’ And before the man could open his mouth, she had spun on her heel and hurried down to where Jarvis had pulled up in one of Howard Stark’s many convertibles, an anxious look on his face that quickly changed into one of relief the moment that he saw her.

‘Miss Carter, thank goodness,’ he said, drawing the car to a halt. ‘I feared that you wouldn’t make it.’ He made to get out of the car in order to open the door for her but Peggy didn’t give him a chance. She had the car door opened before he could open his own, and had slid into the passenger seat in a trice. ‘Put your foot down, Mr. Jarvis,’ she said with a tight smile. ‘I don’t think that I need to tell you that this is one rendezvous that we do _not_ want to be late for.’

‘Understood, Miss Carter,’ Jarvis said at once, recovering quickly. Settling himself back into the driver’s seat, he quickly got the car running and pulled out of the bay. 

‘I only hope that there’s still time,’ Peggy said tightly, checking her face in the mirror to make sure that her makeup wasn’t smudged.

‘Not to worry,’ Jarvis told her bracingly. ‘I’m sure we will be on time now that we’re on our way.’

‘Yes,’ Peggy sighed. ‘It’s just that I wanted to be there early to make sure that everything was in order.’

‘Anna and I have made all the arrangements, Miss Carter,’ Jarvis assured her. ‘Besides,’ he added after a deliberate pause, ‘Mr. Stark was very keen to manage this himself.’

Peggy turned to stare at him. ‘ _Howard?_ ’ she said flatly. ‘You mean to tell me that _Howard_ is taking care of this?’

‘Ah,’ Jarvis winced and deliberately avoided her gaze. ‘He thought it … prudent.’

‘And _I_ thought that he was in the south of France for the rest of the summer!’

Jarvis turned to her in surprise. ‘You didn’t think that he would miss this, did you?’ he asked reproachfully. At Peggy’s look he frowned and turned back to the road. ‘I will have you know that Mr. Stark takes his duties very seriously. When Anna and I telephoned to let him know—’

‘Mr. Jarvis, the very fact that you had to _telephone_ him tells me all I need to know about Howard’s sense of duty.’ 

‘Yes, well – the fact remains that he is here and he is taking care of things.’

Peggy raised an eyebrow. ‘You mean like he did with Hawaii?’

Jarvis winced. ‘I see your point, Miss Carter, but Hawaii was really a product of _over-enthusiasm_ rather than anyth—’

‘And you do remember what happened last year, don’t you?’

‘Now you can’t really—’

‘Explosions, Mr. Jarvis. There were explosions.’

Jarvis sighed. ‘I see your point, Miss Carter,’ he said glumly, before wildly swerving the car to the left just in time to beat the red traffic light. At Peggy’s raised eyebrow, he shrugged, raising his chin up. ‘We _are_ in something of a hurry,’ he said, a touch defensively. ‘And desperate times do call for desperate measures, after all.’

‘Desperate times indeed, Mr. Jarvis,’ Peggy agreed, hiding a smile.

A moment later, they reached their destination. The car had barely pulled to a stop before Peggy had jumped out and started racing up the lawn, with Jarvis following closely behind her.

They had just reached the front yard when they were halted in their footsteps by the ear-shattering sound of trumpeting.

Peggy and Jarvis exchanged a brief, dread-filled look. 

‘Please tell me—’ Peggy began, but Jarvis was already shaking his head. 

‘I am afraid, Miss Carter,’ he said heavily, ‘That your fears are indeed correct.’

With one last shared glance, they hurried past the yard, through the back-gate, and finally arrived at the lush, vast gardens of Stark manor.

It was a zoo.

That wasn’t an exaggeration – Peggy’s eyes had at first been fixed to the elephant but when she finally drew her eyes away, she saw that there was far more on offer than just a pachyderm in the back garden. 

‘Is that a—’

Jarvis glanced in her direction. ‘Ah yes,’ he said with a rather fixed smile. ‘That is indeed a baby giraffe that is currently lunching on my award-winning topiaries.’

Peggy closed her eyes. ‘Mr Jarvis, this is going to be an utter disaster.’

‘I know,’ Jarvis said glumly.

Peggy was just about to respond when there was a shriek of delight, and a tiny brown-haired, blue-eyed missile came zipping their way. 

_Aunt Peggy!!!_

As usual, Peggy felt all of her misgivings give way before the sight of Charles’s angelic face, and she broke into a wide, beaming smile as he threw himself at her legs and wrapped himself tightly around her shins. ‘Happy birthday, Charles,’ she said warmly, reaching down to run an affectionate hand through his floppy brown hair.

_You came!_ Charles said happily, still busy hugging onto her legs as if afraid that she would disappear if he let go.

‘Of course I did!’ Peggy said, finally extricating her legs from his embrace and crouching down so that she could give him a proper hug. ‘You don’t think that I would have missed this, do you?’

_But last time you thought that you wouldn’t be able to make it and—_

‘Hey,’ Peggy caught his chin in between her fingers and forced him to look at her. ‘What I think in my head is not as important as what I say to you to your face. Do you understand that, Charles?’

Charles wrinkled his nose but he nodded slowly, even though he still looked slightly dubious.

‘And didn’t I say that I would be here?’

Charles nodded again, his expression clearing. _Yes Aunt Peggy_ , he said solemnly.

Peggy smiled. ‘Now then,’ she said, straightening up. ‘Why don’t you tell me where Uncle Howard is so that I can go and compliment him on your _wonderful_ birthday surprise?’

Charles bit his lip at that, torn between smiling and ducking his head, clearly knowing all too well what she meant by the word “compliment”. After a moment he gazed up at her with wide, innocent blue eyes. ‘I told him that elephants are my favourite,’ he explained meekly, trying to pretend that he wasn’t as delighted with the impromptu zoo as he really was.

Peggy huffed out a laugh. ‘Yes, I rather thought something like that had happened,’ she said dryly. ‘It’s just like Howard to go overboard. What was it that you said last time that made him fly us all to Hawaii for your birthday? Oh yes,’ Peggy’s eyebrows rose. ‘You said that you wanted to go to the _beach_.’

_I liked Hawaii_ , Charles said enthusiastically, automatically coming to Howard’s rescue. As much as Charles had Howard wrapped around his finger – and he really did, though heaven knows that he had them _all_ wrapped around his finger – the opposite was just as true. 

Peggy sighed. ‘I suppose there’ll be no complaining from _you_ ,’ she said wryly. She glanced up, just in time to see Anna hiding a laugh as Jarvis was attacked by a particularly belligerent flamingo. She smiled.

‘Come on then,’ she said, holding out her hand to Charles, who happily grabbed on to it with his own little one. ‘Let’s go and find your Uncle Howard and see if we can’t get you a ride on the back of that elephant.’

‘And then cake?’ Charles asked hopefully.

Peggy smiled and squeezed his hand. ‘And then cake,’ she promised.


End file.
